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Jodi Arias trial now turns to whether she lives or dies

Jodi Arias jury now returns to the courtroom Thursday to decide whether she deserves to die for killing her one-time boyfriend on June 4, 2008, at his suburban Phoenix home.

Jodi Arias reacts on Wednesday after the jury found she inflicted extreme cruelty on her victim and is thus eligible for the death penalty. Arias was convicted of first-degree murder in the stabbing and shooting to death of Travis Alexander, 30, in his suburban Phoenix home in June 2008. (ROB SCHUMACHER / ARIZONA REPUBLIC/REUTERS)

The same jury that convicted Jodi Arias of first-degree murder in the killing of her ex-boyfriend will now consider if she should be sent to Arizona’s execution chamber, after they decided Wednesday that Travis Alexander’s death was “especially cruel.”

The determination of an aggravating factor was necessary for the case to move on to the final step, where jurors will hear both from Alexander’s family and from those in support of Arias on Thursday morning before they decide if the 32-year-old former waitress will be given the death penalty or life in prison.

The case has stretched on for months, but Wednesday’s aggravation phase took just a few hours. And it was marked by state prosecutor Juan Martinez’s chilling description of what he said was Alexander’s agonizing death.

“He did not go gently into that hot afternoon,” Martinez told the eight male and four female jurors, who agreed unanimously that Alexander would have suffered pain or mental anguish.

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Showing graphic images of the crime scene and of Alexander’s wounds on the screens in the Phoenix courtroom, Martinez described for jurors the terror and pain he said the 30-year-old would have felt.

What, Martinez asked, was it like for Alexander — already stabbed in the back and hunched, bleeding, over a sink in his bathroom — to look into the mirror and see Arias, his killer, standing behind him?

“Not only is he seeing himself in a state of anguish,” Martinez said. “He is able to see her.”

He said Alexander tried to run away. But she chased him, and Arias, standing over him with a knife, would have been Alexander’s final sight.

“The last thing he saw before he lapsed into unconsciousness . . . was that blade coming to his throat,” Martinez said. “And the last thing he felt before he left this earth was pain.”

According to the state Department of Corrections website, there are three women on death row in Arizona. Arias said she would prefer the death penalty to life in prison — another option — in an interview last week with a Phoenix television station, just minutes after her conviction.

“Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place,” she told Fox affiliate KSAZ. “I believe death is the ultimate freedom and I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”

During Wednesday’s session, the courtroom cameras caught Arias alternately crying, looking away from the graphic images, or staring blankly at the table in front of her.

Alexander was killed on June 4, 2008 at his home in Mesa, part of the sprawl of urban Phoenix. Arias first denied any knowledge of the crime, then changed her story and said she had been there, but blamed unknown intruders.

Arias finally admitted that she had killed Alexander, but said it was in self-defence, because he was abusive and became angry after she dropped his new camera. The prosecution said Arias killed Alexander in a rage, jealous that he was seeing other women.

The trial, which was broadcast gavel-to-gavel on cable and the Internet, drew a fixated audience on television but especially online, where armchair lawyers would debate legal strategy, discuss personalities and, usually, cheer for the prosecution.

Part of the appeal was the salacious nature of much of the testimony: extremely explicit images were entered as exhibits, and a lengthy, lurid conversation between Alexander and Arias was played repeatedly in open court.

On Wednesday, via testimony from the medical examiner, Martinez tried to establish that Alexander was alive throughout the onslaught and would have felt pain — and known what was happening to him.

“What’s he thinking about, to see himself bleeding like that?” Martinez said. “Certainly not a holiday.”

With files from The Associated Press

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